93rd to 88th st / 85th to 81st st / 77th to 67th st (w)
16.25 miles
93 degrees. not a single pee. the longest walk to date, i believe. and what i will call the halfway point of this perhaps slightly crazed adventure (and yes, it is june, not march, the desired halfway point).
despite the draining heat, i was reinvigorated in my goal of 508 miles by two internet strangers who did not turn out to be serial killers and were actually wonderful: sean and lisa. sean is walking all of manhattan, too (and is almost finished!). they thought i might be the first woman to do so (from what has been documented), something that had surprisingly never crossed my mind.
while i don’t think of myself as a competitive person, i am now quite determined to finish, even though i am not sure if it is physically feasible in the limited time i have left in this city.
hence,
a very long and very sweaty walk today.
the sights and side conversations were good today: a stuffed animal bunny staring at me from a bench; dogs treating the world as their bathroom; a massive unloading of fresh direct grocery boxes; pride heart; a little girl on the stoop ‘it’s hot owie’; mayoral campaigning; a baby either yelling ‘hi’ or ‘hot’; a man sleeping in a car with a face mask as an eye mask; millennial pink crocs; a breeze shuffling the foilage; a flea market; a little league player hanging onto his dad in a wheelchair; a pregnant woman in a bodcycon dress; a man reading in his car while listening to bops; a sleeping princess in yellow in a stroller; more rainbows than usual today; young pigeon love; the cooler air over the hudson river; someone wearing a shirt that said ‘my best friend is filipino’; a playground camel; a street rollerblader; a gay cherry grove art installation; a little boy on a step with sandwich smeared all over his face, ‘pickle juice, is that all you got?!’.
i stopped at cvs to pick up water; you belong with me was blasting over the ac. it was a feminine angsty kind of day: be sweet by japanese breakfast, caught in the middle by paramore, screwed by janelle monae.
this was the upper west side walk, and walking back and forth between central park and riverside so many times made me lose track of east and west. gradually, though, the neighborhood grew trendier and louder, culminating in chain clothing stores by the time i arrived at lincoln center.
at 72nd i came across a persistent lemonade and cookie stand. the older girl told me they were raising money for their school to buy paper. a bit bizarre, but the lemon bar was yummy.
i was startled by a watchful cat in westsider rare and used books; i picked up a free book from a woman who was unloading books and shoes from her home onto the sidewalk. her red shoes were sadly too big for me.
i was reminded today of part of the reason why i began this walking. there were other factors, too, like being away from new york one day soon, and the uncertainty of the world a year ago. but one of the major forces was cheryl strayed’s memoir wild. the pacific crest trail is perhaps the opposite of new york city, but her grit was moving.
It was all unknown to me then, as I sat on that white bench on the day I finished my hike. Everything except the fact that I didn’t have to know. That it was enough to trust that what I’d done was true. To understand its meaning without yet being able to say precisely what it was, like all those lines from The Dream of a Common Language that had run through my nights and days. To believe that I didn’t need to reach with my bare hands anymore. To know that seeing the fish beneath the surface of the water was enough. That it was everything. It was my life—like all lives, mysterious and irrevocable and sacred. So very close, so very present, so very belonging to me. How wild it was, to let it be.
cheryl strayed / wild